Be Careful What You Pin–You Could End Up in Jail…

If you’ve signed into Pinterest at all in the last few days, chances are you’ve seen the image above. Initially, I was like you and decided to skip right over these pins, but then I got curious.

And good thing, too. Turns out a bunch of pinners are trying to start a revolution. Okay, not really, but they are trying to send the folks at Pinterest a message. Why? Because all those pretty pics that make the site so pretty and popular could also send people to jail.

Yup, it’s true. If you read the official Pinterest Terms of Use you’ll see that by signing up as a member you’re agreeing that you have rights to pin everything you’re pinning.

Now on the wide world internet, you probably think everything is fair game, but the truth is it’s not. Photographers make money by selling the photos they take. So yeah, they probably appreciate all the publicity of you pinning their pretty pictures, but I bet they’d rather you paid for them.

Back to the Pinterest Terms of Use, though. The scary fact is that one pretty little pin could land your pretty little a$$ in jail. Say, for example, you pin a pic of a pretty reception table. Then say, a fancy magazine puts that pic on their cover. Well, that photographer knows how much mags pay for photo rights, so they’ll be coming to collect. But the magazine will deflect to Pinterest and then Pinterest will deflect to you. And yeah, if you can’t pay up you’re going to jail.

Of course, there are a lot “ifs” in this equation. And yes, most professional organizations will check photo rights before mass printing it. But heaven forbid this scenario were to unfold as described above because then you’d be screwed.

So what do you do now? Stop pinning. Good luck with that. Only pin pics you own. Boring! Keep on pinning! Hey, if Martha Stewart made it out, you’ll be alright… right?